(MARSHALL, Texas) – Along with other recent expansions at Texas State Technical College’s Marshall campus, this fall the college is introducing its 11th program there: Building Construction Technology.
“TSTC’s mission is to fuel Texas’ economic engine by producing highly skilled workers for today’s in-demand jobs,” Bart Day, TSTC’s Marshall campus provost, said. “All of the indicators tell us that offering students the chance to study Building Construction Technology is a terrific opportunity for us to continue to answer that call.”
According to Rick Vargas, director of alignment for Building Construction Technology, TSTC is working to expand the program statewide to include the Marshall, New Braunfels and Sweetwater campuses. With Marshall, he said he hopes word of the opportunity will spread across East Texas and into the Dallas area.
“In Marshall, we’re looking to start with at least two cohorts for a total of 30 students,” Vargas said. “We’re starting off with our certificate program first to get a foothold, but the goal is to eventually spread to our associate degree program.”
Tony Chaffin, a Building Construction Technology instructor at TSTC’s Waco campus, said the program needs to expand in order to combat the labor shortage.
“We need to turn out more people that are ready to go into the industry, and not necessarily at an entry-level laborer position,” Chaffin said. “(Our graduates) are way further ahead on where they would be with a company after their first year than if they started out without any skills at all — their promotion opportunities are much greater.”
Diana Balderas, a Building Construction Technology student at TSTC’s Waco campus, comes from a long line of construction workers in her family. She said she was excited to hear that the program will be available closer to her hometown of Pittsburg.
“I know there’s a lot of construction in East Texas, so it will be beneficial for people that don’t have experience in it and want to get into the field,” Balderas said.
According to onetonline.org, first-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers earn an average of $67,650 per year in Texas, where the number of such jobs was projected to increase 23% from 2020 to 2030.
For more information on TSTC, go to tstc.edu.
